San Juan and Ponce;

Page 1

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'Buenos dias, Haskins & Sells," says Iris
Morgan on the San Juan Office switch­board.
"Ponga un tigre en su tanque,"
says the sign at the gas station you pass
coming from the airport. Such evidence
of Puerto Rico's Spanish traditions has
been mounting since you boarded the
plane in New York or Miami.
But in the H&S offices in San Juan
and Ponce you're not likely to have a
language problem. All but about a half
dozen people on the combined staffs
speak both English and Spanish with
ease. How do they decide which one
to use for running a staff training meet­ing?
Since most of the group are fluent
in both, the choice is made to suit the
preponderance of the few who know
only one.
Marion Medich, principal, who
transferred from Cleveland to San Juan
a year ago, found "there is no great
trick to catching on to books kept in
Spanish —the usual accounting words
are quickly identifiable. Where you may
run into trouble is in reading minutes
or other legal documents. That's the
only time you need an interpreter."
Actually, many accounting records
are kept in English, and this is uni­versally
so for Puerto Rican clients that
are stateside companies. It also applies
to locally-owned organizations that
must submit reports to the banks.
Some of the H&S San Juan staff come
by their Spanish tongue naturally
though they are not native Puerto
Ricans. This includes all of the Cubans:
Manuel Gonzalez Bueno and Amado C.
Zudaire, both of whom came from
DPH&S Havana when work there was
suspended in 1962, Jose and Amada
Alvarifio, Ricardo Gonzalez and Rober­to
Fabelo. It also includes Eugenia
Herrera, secretary, who until 1953 had
lived in Santo Domingo. Surprisingly,
on the other hand, principal Robert Ca-ballero,
whose father was a Puerto
Rican, had to learn Spanish when in
1951 he moved back to San Juan after
growing up in New York. Principal
Hans Jacobsthal, who recently became
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